Birthday Baking Blues
by Ultrawoman
Summary: One-Shot. Zoe & Wade's son, Jack, is about to celebrate his first birthday, and for that he'll need a very special cake, one that Zoe is determined that she and her husband have to bake for themselves. [For LongLiveTheHart, on her birthday]. [Part 4 in the 'Long Live The Hart-Kinsellas' series].


**A/N: Happy Birthday to the wonderful **_**LongLiveTheHart**_**! This fic was written specifically for her, based on things she has said to me in long threads of PMs over the past few months, but I do hope that a few other people might get a kick out of it too. It made me very happy to write it :)**

_**Disclaimer: All recognisable characters from Hart of Dixie belong to Leila Gerstein and other people who aren't me.**_

Birthday Baking Blues

"Come on, Wade. We have to do this"

"Pretty sure that we don't, doc," he said, leaning on the counter and watching her line up bags of flour and sugar and such. "Come on now, there's a bakery right there in town, or you know, Lemon, she volunteered."

"I don't care!" Zoe snapped perhaps a little too loudly, slamming the mixing bowl, down into place - if her stressing wasn't obvious before, it sure as hell was now. "Our son is going to be one whole year old tomorrow and he deserves a great birthday cake," she insisted.

"Which is kind of my point here," her husband pointed out, moving around the counter to stand beside her. "Why, when there are so many people in this crazy town who know exactly how to bake a birthday cake, do you and me have to take our best shot at screwing it up?"

It wasn't the first time he had tried to figure out Zoe's desperate need for baking. When she started in on the whole concept a couple of weeks back, Wade had tried to put her off. That volunteering that Lemon had done really wasn't as much her offering help out of nowhere as Wade dropping hints so that she would. Still, Zoe was determined. Apparently, the two of them had to bake a cake for Jack themselves, if she could ever explain why, of course.

"Because... Because we're parents now and parents make sacrifices and do the tough things and..." She floundered for a second time before finally spitting it out. "And I just don't want to go through my child's whole life never being able to give him the things that really matter. You can't just buy kids presents. They need time and understanding and home-made birthday cakes."

She was back to clattering around with utensils by now, checking the recipe to see that they had all of the ingredients. Wade hated that she was getting so stressed about all of this, but one thing he knew about his Zoe was that when she set her mind to something, there really was no stopping her. Most times, he liked to stand well clear of the fireworks, but this had to do with their son, and he needed to be a part of that. He just wished he really understood where all of this was coming from.

"Candice ever do this for you?" he asked, finding it tough to imagine somehow, but stranger things had probably happened.

"Never." Zoe sighed and shook her head. "I mean, she bought me some great cakes. Really, _really_ great cakes, but it wasn't the same. I was always jealous of the kids who had parents that made their cake for them," she said, looking up at Wade with sad eyes as the whole truth now finally came out. "You already told me that your mom did it."

"She did," Wade agreed, nodding his head, "and she woulda been proud as anythin' to make 'em for Jack too, but that's 'cause she knew how to bake, doc. She never got as far as teaching me that. We started with cooking because it's less complicated. You can get that stuff a little wrong and it'll still work, but baking's like science and stuff," he said, glancing at the recipe and frowning at the very precise measurements and all. "Screw it up and it is seriously screwed up."

"It cannot be that hard," Zoe insisted.

"Possibly you're not recalling my attempt at black and white cookies, and that was me, a guy who can cook," Wade reminded her, taking a hold of Zoe's busy hands and pulling her to him. "Sweetheart, I love you, but I once stood in this very kitchen and watched you try to add cleanser to gumbo."

"It looked like the salt," she grumbled, even as she accepted the hug he was trying to give her. "Besides, I would like to remind you that I won second prize in the gumbo competition that year," she told him, smiling when he dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

With her face in his chest, she missed the part where Wade opened his mouth to tell her something and then promptly changed his mind. Now probably wasn't the time to get into the whole gumbo thing anyhow, but the memory of what he had done just to make Zoe happy rang in his head, making it real clear to him why it was so important to her to bake this cake for Jack.

"Alright now, if we're gonna do this thing, let's get into it," he said, suddenly pulling away and clapping his hands together.

Zoe took a deep breath and picked up the recipe, reading slowly from the top about the correct weight of flour to be sifted. This cake baking thing really couldn't be that hard.

_Three hours later..._

"That was _not_ easy," Zoe declared, letting out a huge sigh.

Wade leant on the counter beside her and took a look at the cake they had made. It didn't look half bad. Of course, it didn't look so great either, but that was best left unsaid.

"Nah, not easy, but we got there in the end," he told her, kissing her cheek.

"Huh," said Zoe, smiling as she looked at him. "It's like this cake is a metaphor for our whole relationship."

"Well, then, that means it's got the magic ingredient, I guess," Wade told her, his arm around her back pulling her closer.

"Baked with love," she declared, grinning big.

"'Course that don't mean it's goin' to taste all that great."

"Meh, he's only a year old, he won't remember anyway." Zoe waved away any worries either of them had on that one. "What's the first birthday you remember clearly?" she asked Wade then.

He looked thoughtful a minute before he smiled some more and answered her question.

"When I was four. Got my first real bike that year. I had two skinned knees and bruises all over before the day was through, but I couldn'ta been happier."

Zoe giggled at the imagery of a little version of Wade with his brand-new bike. It was an adorable picture in her head.

"I'm pretty sure I was five," she said then. "My mom organised this big party for me and bought me this amazing new dress. My dad, Ethan, he said he had never seen anyone look as pretty."

"Bet you were a picture, doc," Wade told her, tucking her hair back behind her ear. "What's that look for now?" he asked then, seeing the frown coming before it was even fully formed on her face.

"I don't know." Zoe shrugged. "I just... Sometimes, I wonder what it would've been like to know Harley back then."

"Now that man would've baked you a cake."

"Seriously?" she checked, eyes wider than wide as she stared up at Wade.

"Yes, ma'am." He nodded easily. "Old Harley beat out the ladies more'n once with his extra special Lane cake, and with his jams and jellies at the county fair, as I recall."

"There's so much I don't know about him."

It came out with no small amount of wonder, but there was sadness in her tone as well. It was tough enough on Wade, not having his momma from the age of ten, but he knew it was a different kind of hard on Zoe to have never really known her real daddy at all.

"Hey," he said, pulling her into his arms. "What there is to know, I'll keep on telling you, Zoe, as much as I can," he promised, "and we'll tell Jack too, about Harley and my momma and everyone, just like we said we would. He'll know it all."

Zoe smiled and nodded, believing every word he said, and loving him all the more for saying them. She reached up and kissed him sweetly then pulled back with a sigh.

"We should really clean all of this up," she said, gesturing to the war zone that was the kitchen. "Poor Lavon, he's been taking care of Jack all day, he so does not want to come back to all this mess."

"He and Lemon have been taking care of him," Wade reminded her, even as she slipped from his grasp, "and since she's lookin' for practice before their own little one comes along, I don't think Lavon is working all that hard."

"Aww, but he does so much for us," Zoe reminded him, "for me, most of all. From the first day I got here, he was such a good friend," she went on, putting bowls and utensils into the sink to wash and tossing empty packets and such into the trash. "You know Lavon made that second-prize-winning gumbo for me and never told anyone. He wouldn't even take credit from me."

Wade bit his lip wondering how he was supposed to handle this one. A few hours ago, when the topic of gumbo came up before, it didn't seem like the right time. Maybe now was the moment, maybe he should just come clean at last. He watched Zoe cleaning cake mix and icing off spoons and spatulas, and picked up the dishtowel to dry things off for her.

"You know, doc, there's something I should tell you about that gumbo competition," he said eventually. "See, my Uncle Moe had the best recipe for gumbo."

"Yeah, I think you mentioned that." Zoe nodded even as her eyes stayed fixed on the job at hand.

"He taught me that same recipe and I make a pretty good job at it. Never did win first prize in the competition though," Wade explained, watching Zoe closely when he spoke again. "Best I ever did was second."

"Huh," she said, letting the water out of the sink and drying off her hands. "That's so weird because..." she stopped mid-sentence as she turned around and saw the smile on Wade's face. "No. No way!" she gasped "Wade, you didn't? And you never told me?"

"You thought it was Lavon." He shrugged like it was nothing, tossing the dish towel past her onto the drainer.

"You could've told me it wasn't," Zoe insisted. "Wade, that was the sweetest thing to do, why wouldn't you tell me?" she asked, staring up at him in apparent amazement.

"Didn't think it'd make much of a difference at the time," he said softly, eyes everywhere but on her as he confessed it all at last. "'Sides, I didn't want you thinkin' every nice thing I did was... well, to get you into bed," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Pretty sure that's all you thought I wanted from you back then. Hell, I used to try to tell myself that's all it was."

"We both did that for a while," Zoe confessed, stepping in closer and putting her arms up around his neck, "but it doesn't matter now. It's like we said, we got there in the end."

She reached up to kiss him and he kissed her back with all he had. Wade and Zoe were so caught up in each other, they didn't even notice when the back door opening or Lemon walking in with Lavon on her heels, carrying Jack in his arms. Immediately she saw the display, Lemon reached to put her hand over the little one's eyes.

"Wow. Well, that's just gonna scar the poor child for the rest of his life," she declared, watching with no small amount of amusement as the couple parted abruptly.

"He's seen worse," Wade assured her with a wicked smirk.

Lemon couldn't help but laugh, especially when Zoe smacked her husband in the chest for his remark.

"Well, dang," said Lavon then, "you guys actually did it. You baked a cake," he said, apparently amazed. "And it looks good too," he said, moving Jack away when his little hand reached straight out towards the icing.

"Whether it tastes good or not is a whole other thing," Zoe reminded him, "but we tried."

"Tryin's half the battle." Lavon shrugged. "You put in the effort, did a nice thing for someone you love. That's what really counts in these things."

"Yeah, you're right about that," Zoe agreed, looking up at Wade for a moment, thinking about what he told her just a few minutes ago and what a nice moment they had been having when they were interrupted. "Um, you think maybe you could keep a hold of Jack for just a little while longer?" she asked her friends then. "You'll be okay here with Aunt Lemon and Uncle Lavon, won't you, sweetie?" she asked Jack, taking a hold of his hand and smiling when he nodded his head in agreement.

"Well, sure, we can take him a while longer," Lavon assured her.

"Do you have more birthday errands to run?" Lemon asked curiously.

"Uh, no," Zoe admitted, "but, you know, tomorrow is going to be all about Jack's special day, as it should be. I don't think me and Wade are going to get much of an opportunity to celebrate our anniversary, and I had a gift I wanted to give him."

"A gift?" Lavon echoed, before realising Wade was mouthing 'She knows - gumbo' over Zoe's head. "Oh, a _gift_," he said, chuckling at the realisation of the belated gratitude Wade was about to receive.

Lemon was so busy fussing over Jack by then, she didn't see a thing, just heard the giggling as Zoe and Wade disappeared out of the back door.

"She sure is in a frisky mood for someone who just spent half the day baking a lopsided cake," she noted, frowning at the state of Zoe and Wade's best attempt for Jack's birthday. "And what is so funny?" she asked Lavon when he continued to laugh.

"Oh, nothin' much," he assured her, waving away her concern. "Just remind me sometime to tell you the real story 'bout how Zoe Hart placed second in the 12th Annual Bluebell Gumbo Competition."

The End


End file.
